When I interviewed Kenneth Smith he told me the guards who tried – and failed – to execute him by lethal injection said it was much better than being gassed. Tonight he’ll have nitrogen forced into his lungs and he is terrified, writes TOM LEONARD

It’s been two months since I spoke to Kenneth Smith, the death row inmate who—by the time you read this—may have breathed his last.

He told me at the time that he was “absolutely terrified” at the prospect. Not surprising, you might say, but ‘Kenny’ – as he is known to the staff who have been his prison guards for the past 35 years – had a very special reason to fear his final moments.

In November 2022, after three men spent 90 minutes trying to kill him with a cocktail of drugs before giving up after failing to puncture a vein, one of his would-be executioners tried to offer him comfort by reassuring him argue that lethal injection was much better. way to go than to be gassed.

“He tried to comfort me and we got into a bizarre conversation,” Smith, 58, said. “He said, ‘Oh, you know, man, if you gotta go, this is the way.’ Lethal injection, he said, is painless. And he said gas is asphyxiation and no one knows what’s going to happen. I couldn’t get that out of my head.’

Kenneth Smith’s victim Elizabeth Sennett, pictured with her husband Charles, who paid two men $1,000 each to kill his wife so he could collect her life insurance

But just a week later, the state of Alabama announced it would try to kill Smith this way, setting him on a bleak path to becoming the first person in the US to be executed with a new, untested gassing method known stands for ‘nitrogen’. hypoxia’.

This involves putting a face mask on the victim and making him breathe pure nitrogen until he suffocates.

Alabama has hailed it as “the most painless and humane method of execution known to man,” claiming it would take a few seconds to knock Smith unconscious and five to 15 minutes to kill him.

Several states that still maintain the death penalty list nitrogen hypoxia as a permitted method of execution, but have never used it. She and Alabama will observe Smith’s fate as they search for an alternative to lethal injections.

But opponents of executions, including the UN, have said the method amounts to human experimentation because no one can know whether the process – sometimes used to kill pigs but banned by veterinarians as a method of killing other mammals – is painless.

Some medical experts believe this could result in a range of catastrophic accidents, from violent convulsions to surviving in a vegetative state. Smith’s lawyers claimed the method would violate the U.S. Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment” and filed a last-minute appeal. But on Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court and a lower appeals court declined to block the execution. Amid last-ditch efforts to save him, a 30-hour period during which Smith was to be executed with nitrogen was due to end at 6am local time (1200 GMT) today.

Smith is incarcerated at the William C Holman Correctional Facility. The father of four was convicted of the 1988 murder of 45-year-old Elizabeth Sennett in Sheffield, Alabama.

He and another man, John Parker, were each given $1,000 by her husband Charles, a local church pastor who was having an affair with another woman, to kill his wife so he could collect the insurance money. Smith admitted that he took part in her attack but denied that he intended to kill her.

After decades of legal wrangling, he was scheduled to be executed on November 17, 2022. Smith spent much of that day with his family and friends in Holman’s visiting area, while his lawyers launched eleventh-hour legal appeals.

He had one last meal – his choice of fried catfish and shrimp – before being visited for the last time by a local lay preacher. Just before 8 p.m., guards streamed onto his “death row” and took him to the nearby execution chamber, even though legal arguments were ongoing.

Elizabeth Sennett was 45 when she was murdered by Smith and an accomplice in 1988

Convicted prisoners are strapped to a stretcher in the prison’s death chamber

Smith is imprisoned at the William C Holman Correctional Facility, deep in the dense swamp forests of central Alabama

He was then strapped to a stretcher by his arms, legs and feet. At 10 p.m. – 23 minutes before the Supreme Court approved his execution – three men dressed in blue, red and green scrubs entered with a medical trolley.

They injected him with midazolam hydrochloride, rocuronium bromide and potassium chloride, which would theoretically sedate him and then stop his heart.

‘Blue Scrubs’ and ‘Green Scrubs’ both failed to find a usable vein, and the executioners asked for the stretcher to be tilted so that his feet were pointing upwards. Everyone except his guards went outside, leaving Smith lying there for several minutes.

When the IV team returned, “Red Scrubs” stuck a huge needle under Smith’s collarbone. Smith remembers being jabbed repeatedly with the needle, causing so much pain that he could “barely breathe.”

He has since compared the experience to running it through a sewing machine. He told the Mail: ‘By the end I wasn’t thinking about prayer anymore – I was thinking, ‘Please get that off my chest.’

But eventually they stopped and again everyone left except the guards, leaving Smith strapped to the stretcher. Little did he know that they would no longer have time to carry out the death sentence before midnight.

With his ordeal over, the IV team’s attitude changed: Green Scrubs offered him some water, held his hand, and told him he would pray for him.

Why had he survived, he asked. “Legal matters,” said Green Scrubs, who then expressed his extraordinary assurance about the benefits of lethal injection instead of nitrogen.

The identities and qualifications of the potential executioners have never been revealed, although senior officials insisted that some attendees had “medical” training.

When we spoke about the first anniversary of his botched execution, he said to me, “Those guards who carried me around… I saw them every day, Tom.”

Given nitrogen hypoxia’s potential to transform America’s beleaguered death penalty system, Kenneth Smith will be far from alone in wanting to know whether his fate will be painless or unbearable.

How countries around the world kill their convicted prisoners

To shoot

This is the most common form of execution in the world and is used in about 70 countries, including China, Indonesia, Belarus, some Gulf states and Taiwan. This method is still allowed in the US states of Utah, South Carolina and Oklahoma.

The prisoner is sometimes hooded or, as in Taiwan, first given a strong anesthetic. Then a target is placed on the condemned man’s heart, or the firing squad aims at the head.

Single executioner shooting involves firing a bullet into the back of the prisoner’s head or neck, or firing a gun into the back.

The last public hanging in the United States was in 1936

Hanging

Hanging with a long drop was the main method of execution in Great Britain from the 18th century to 1964. Today it is used in Singapore and Japan, among others, and was deployed in the US states of Delaware and Washington until recently 2016 and 2018 respectively. .

The ‘drop’ is calculated based on the prisoner’s height and weight to determine the length of rope needed to kill him or her quickly. If the rope is too long, decapitation may occur.

The prisoner is blindfolded and a trapdoor is opened, through which the prisoner falls.

Death is often not immediate. Slow asphyxiation can occur if the noose is placed incorrectly or if the drop is too short.

Lethal injection

Lethal injection is the most common method of execution in America today – in use in 27 states – and is also used in China, Taiwan, Guatemala, Nigeria and Vietnam, among others.

The prisoner is injected with a cocktail of drugs, including an anesthetic, a paralytic and potassium to stop the heart. The prisoner falls unconscious and stops breathing.

Untrained prison guards often fail to elevate a vein, leading to agonizing pain when the drugs are injected. When the drugs are administered in the wrong order or quantity, they can also cause cardiac arrest while the prisoner remains conscious – an outcome that has been likened to torture.

Electric chair

The electric chair – known as ‘Old Sparky’ – remains in use in the US states of Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Oklahoma.

However, prisoners are given a choice and most opt ​​for lethal injection, which is generally considered less painful. Opponents insist that “Old Sparky” is “cruel and unusual punishment.” There have been several cases where it took multiple attempts before the victim died, with some victims even catching fire.

Before the electrocution, the prisoner’s head and legs are shaved and a hood with a saltwater-soaked sponge is placed on the head – all to ensure better conduction of electricity through the body. The prisoner is strapped into the chair and electrodes are attached to the legs.

Several cycles of current are passed through the body, causing immediate unconsciousness and ultimately cardiac arrest and organ damage.

Decapitation

Saudi Arabia is the only country that carries out executions by beheading. Executions are public and beheading is done with a sword. About 150 beheadings take place in the country every year.

The method was used historically in Britain to execute noblemen: the last person to die this way was Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat, in 1747.

Up to 17,000 people were beheaded during the French Revolution, and this remained the main method of execution in France until 1977.